


The Blood is Rare (and Sweet as Cherry Wine)

by ssleif



Category: Teen Wolf (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Bard!derek, M/M, Witcher!AU, witcher!stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:41:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22601155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssleif/pseuds/ssleif
Summary: Repository for my Sterek Valentine Week 2020 ficlets. All in the same universe-- a Witcher fusion where Stiles is the Witcher and Derek is the bard.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 5
Kudos: 55
Collections: Sterek Valentine Week





	1. First

**Author's Note:**

> The violence warning is for Witcher hunts, until the last two parts, where it is also for sexy stuff.
> 
> Basically, I had the bug for a witcher fusion, but felt like Witcher!derek, Bard!stiles was too close to the actual Geralt/Jaskier vibe. Like in contemporary teen wolf, Stiles would totally watch the netflix show and make Derek cosplay Geralt 110%. that fits super well.
> 
> So this is borne out of an attempt to set the dynamic the other way, and the Valentines week prompts provide a nice framework. So here are seven little adventures from a parallel Witcher!verse.
> 
> There are eight sections (0-7): a prologue, basically, and then a short piece for each of the prompts. I'll post each section separately on Tumblr as the days happen, and I'll post in two parts here, 0-3, and 4-7.
> 
> also, yeah, very original, a Hozier lyric as your title, well done me, i know.
> 
> tumblr masterlist: [over here](https://do-what-the-knight-tells-you.tumblr.com/post/190846061584/blood-is-rare-and-sweet-like-cherry-wine)

0- Let Us Set the Stage

John was a Witcher, and Claudia was a sorceress. They had a kid (and we don’t need, at this time, to go into what they had to beg, borrow, steal, or claim law of surprise on in order for two people who are supposed not to be able to have kids, for lots of reasons, to have a kid). But nothing in this world is wholly of joy, and despite several years of more fulfillment than either had dared hope for in their adult lives, Claudia dies.

So John-the-Witcher raises Stiles at Kaer Morhen, and he’s real fucked up over the loss of Claudia, and real torn up about what to do with Stiles. Like, if his kid was also a Witcher, that’d be easier and safer in some ways, but also it would be TERRIBLE because 1. Stiles could and likely would die in the process, and fuck John for even considering that risk and 2. Becoming a Witcher is torture, so fuck John for considering that, too. If John “was a better man” or whatever, he’d take Stiles off to the other end of the continent and hide him from all the Witchers and Sorcerers and all the fucked up institutions in this world that like to take little children and mold them through abuse into tools of the organization and pretend it’s somehow altruism. John should suck it up, he’s a parent, the only parent now, and his first priority ought to be Stiles…

But before his soul-searching reaches a conclusion re: Stiles vs. The path. Vs just crawling into a bottle for a decade or so until he gets killed by a monster and can quit…

Stiles makes a choice. 

Now, whether or no that choice can be considered truly a reflection of his own maturity and agency, that's a separate conversation. But whether due to guilt thinking it was somehow his fault that his mother died, compassion and worry over his father's struggles, or a desire to prove to everyone including himself that he was tough, and not a kid, and could totally take care of himself...

The fact remains, that Stiles sucked up every inch of confidence and self-worth he didn't have, at age 7, and made the choice his father couldn't.

Three days later they finally found him, still sick from the mutagenic potions, but somehow still alive.

Still alive, which Pleased the older Witchers no end, and John looked on helplessly while his child, Claudia's child...

There’s really not a whole lot of turning back from there, and John was a little bit relived and fucking loathes himself for the fact that he’s relieved.

But yeah, so Stiles survives, and grows, and trains, and becomes a Witcher.

And he’s good at it, so fucking smart, and particularly good at the magics Witchers use, a likely legacy of his mom’s. And so what if Witchers have a shitty reputation— the world is a bit shit. Stiles finds, once he's completed his training and begins to walk the path as an adult, that he is content enough to protect people, and kill bad shit, and sometimes have a nice bath or a nice lay or whatever and it’s fine.

It’s fine. He doesn't regret his choice, even if he now understands that he was too young to truly make it, and that it was the likely result of failings in other people, people who should have been looking out for children, people like his father.

And then one day, at an inn in the back end of nowhere, unlooked for, unanticipated...

Stiles the Witcher, Slaughterer of Saints and Serpents alike... meets this bard.

  
1- Cupid’s Flight

Stiles hadn’t been so frustrated with how WRONG the bard was, since the very first day of their acquaintance that began with Derek recounting a bawdy version of of the Lai of Bisclavret, completely full of misremembering, romanticizing, and sexual exaggeration. It was shit like that, Stiles had thought, that was responsible for people trying to hire him to find them Sirens and shit to be their wives, as like as to remove said creatures from local waterways where they had been literally eating people… Stiles was a professional, and educated enough to know that a mature werewolf, one born, raised, or trained into it for many years, could be completely in control of all of their baser natures and probably less dangerous to their community than the average tavern-goer… but shit, folks didn’t need to start thinking that getting turned would make them a better lover, or some other bullshit that was just going to result in a rash of completely feral morons ravaging the countryside in the wake of this idiotic… young… dark haired… shit his eyes were gorgeous… and all that hair… and those adorable teeth… fuck what? What, why was he coming over? Had Stiles stared too much? He had. Crap, now there was gonna be a confrontation and Stiles was gonna get thrown out again, Melitele, he just wanted a drink and some peace, was that too much to… wait what? The young idiot wanted to know what stiles Thought about his crock-of-shit ballad? Well then…

It’d been several months now, of Derek “accompanying” Stiles on hunts, off and on, pestering him for details, arguing with him over facts, and then painting that shit in Rosy words that defanged vampires, declawed griffins, and made half the beasts Stiles had faced look like domesticated dogs. (the other half, Derek seemed to have decided were good to fear, and he’d happily attributed their deaths to Stiles in a much more shining-light-of-righteousness manner than Stiles remembers the actual fight going… usually there’s a lot more excrement. Killing is a messy business.)

But this shit…

“According to Bard Parateus’ Highland cycle, fairies—”

Stiles snorted, giving into the argument.

“Parateus was full of shit. A winged baby that shoots people with arrows and makes them fall in love? Complete crock of shit.”

Derek doubled down, with a frown.

“Parateus’ account was backed by Androlian, in his Mists of the mind cycle, and then by Baraccio…”

“Who were both writing well after Parateus’ time, as you well know.”

They’d been on the trail of this, what ever it was, probably some kind of spirit, or Djinn maybe, for about three days, and in all that time, Derek had hardly shut up about the more flowery and soft tales of, of fucking cupids or whatever, except to take copious notes in his damn journal. His fixation on the idea of a, like, love spirit, was genuinely starting to piss Stiles off. In his experience, feelings borne of magic were rarely a good thing. Even if it felt okay in the moment, the aftermath was usually full of violated trust, broken relationships, and fear. Could a person have a good time with the right batch of herbs, a beautiful night, and a willing partner? Sure. But everything else, from love potions usually meant to entrap someone into something they wouldn’t otherwise have done, to mystical intervention by higher powers (and what being with the power to do that shit was ever gonna being doing it with folks’ best interests in mind, huh?)... All of it was a bad idea.

Derek had gone on to an account of a farm hand and a mayor’s daughter who meet in a market, but Stiles was suddenly only half-listening, catching the unusual silence in the trees, and a strange scent drifting towards them on the breeze. Derek stopped a moment later, apparently noticing Stiles’ distraction.

In silence, Stiles dismounted Roscoe, and led her quietly along the path, Derek following as softly as it is possible for a bard, burdened with lute, books, and sixty-eight doublets to move. (okay, maybe two, but that was two too many for Stiles’ taste. Though Witchers were not exactly known for their fashion. Roscoe carried a couple of clean under-layers for him, but that was it. A witcher lived, died, and sometimes fucked in his leathers.)

Finally, sounds picked up again, as they neared the town gate.

Soft sounds… wet sounds. Breathy little noises, and slick, low-friction sliding, and now and again the creak of floors, walls…. Beds?

Aw hell. It was a goddamn orgy. This was gonna be so unsanitary. How Stiles could literally gut monsters for a living, and yet humans still seemed to be able to top the list of disgusting—

Ah. And his medallion vibrated a warning. Definitely Magic.

Well. Time to find the fairy then. 

  
2- Breakfast of Champions

Derek was furious for about a week after Stiles had left him stationed outside the town while he ventured in to find the source of the unnatural midday love fest. He’d tried, and failed, to make a convincing case for why he should be allowed close enough to observe, but Stiles had countered, both with an argument about natural Witcher resistance to certain kinds of will-tampering, and also with a threat involving rope and trees and mounting Roscoe and leaving Derek in the dust. (and after he’d thought it through, he realized that the idea of getting caught in the spell, of having a lot of sex with a lot of people, all the while NONE of them were aware enough to be exactly consenting, actually, kind of made him sick to his core, made him want to roll back the clock to the previous day, when his only concern was myths about destiny and courtly love, when he’d been successfully suppressing any issues he definitely definitely had.)

After Derek stewed himself sick with nerves and fear for awhile, he decided, as long as Stiles came out the other side unharmed (oh shit, what was he going to do if the Witcher didn’t? Could he go in after him? No. Not only had Stiles forbidden it, but now that Derek was thinking he couldn’t let himself be captive like that, ever again. But if he didn’t, and the thing got Stiles, could he live with himself, having not even tried to save the man? Another person to add to the list of folk Derek had failed?)… as long as Stiles came out unharmed, Derek decided, he was going to be pissed about the patronizing way Stiles had basically put him in timeout/on horse duty.

And Stiles had come out, finally, having successfully found the object the spirit had been bound to and released it, banishing the spirit, and leaving the young man who’d been using its magic to bed anyone he wanted for the better part of a month, until the magic got away from him, holding the bag, as it were, in the middle of a town-full of very angry, very hurt, very embarrassed folks. Stiles figured, and Derek resentfully agreed, that there was no punishment he could come up with that would serve better justice, and that it might be good for some of the folk he’d wronged to have an opportunity to take back some control.

So Derek was trying really hard to focus on being pissed at the Witcher, and not on how gentle and noble he found Stiles’ interpretations of such situations to be, not on how grateful he was that Stiles hadn’t let him walk naively into danger of that nature, how kind and honest he found the man to be, how much he wondered and wished if Stiles would be that kind to him, should Derek ever tell the Witcher all his secrets.

Derek was so tied up in knots and feelings, he totally forgot the date, until a wrapped parcel hit him in the stomach one morning, dangerously jostling his bladder and pulling him out of a sound slumber. 

Derek, even with as good as his vision was, could only just make out the shape of his temporary companion rolling his bedding up on the other side of their little clearing, through the misty, pre-dawn. 

He groaned, pulled himself from his own bedding, and stumbled off a couple of paces to relive himself, before stumbling back, and collapsing again, studying the package he’d been, uh, given, in the weak light.

The twine came apart with a firm tug, and the paper slid back to reveal… oh. It was a book. A journal maybe? The cover was a sturdy dark leather with a pattern of some sort Derek couldn’t make out, but the pale of the binding strings on the spine stood out even in the dim light, and the pages were crisp and blank when Derek opened it.

“Is it intended as a journal?” he ventured, and Stiles responded from much closer than Derek expected, making him startle a bit.

“Yep. And magic, too.” Stiles was suddenly right next to him, reaching a rough-scarred and calloused hand out to delicately slide those beautiful long fingers along the cover, flipping it over suddenly, opening the back cover, and indicating the holes left where a person could stitch in another signature of paper.

“The woman said, and demonstrated, that you can add as many pages as you want, and there will always be room for more, and that you can take out as many pages as you want, and bind them into other books or whatever, and they will be normal again.”

Derek marveled. 

“So it’s the leather that’s enchanted?”

Stiles shrugged.

“I guess. Close the book, she said, and it rights itself, and when you open it, all the, uh pages…”

“Signatures?”

“Yeah, each piece will be in order, with the extra space at the end again, and the book will never get heavier, or take up any more space.”

Derek was amazed, touched, and oh, it was his name day, now he realized, but how had Stiles known? Derek didn’t remember ever telling him…

“Stiles, I don’t know how to, I thank you. This is—”

And Stiles had already pulled back, moved back to where Roscoe was standing, chewing something, patiently waiting to be saddled and made ready.

“I just didn’t want my horse to have to haul any more books than necessary.”

Derek knew that was only part of it, and he opened his mouth to double-down on the thanks… and whas hit in the face by hunk of bread.

“Breakfast in bed, as well.” Stiles said, and Derek knew him well enough by now to picture the smirk, even if he couldn’t see it, and decided he better let it go if he didn’t want to be pelted with anything else (or risk giving himself away by catching the projectiles, now that he was awake and prepared for it).

The gift though, Derek dwelt on for so long he forgot to be angry. It was quite possibly the most thoughtful thing, in a lot of ways the most intimate thing, he’d ever been given. He’d have to experiment, see how easy it was, but there was the possibility now that he could have as much information as he wanted with him at all times, and it would make his relatively frequent trips back to the Bardic guild much less urgent… he could go father, without worrying about where he was leaving his books, whether he could trust anyone who wasn’t of a collegial guild to understand how important it was that his books be safe. He could be on the road for months and months, years even, if he wanted, before going back himself to bind his journals anew and leave them where they’d really be safe and secure...

He could travel with Stiles as long as the Witcher would have him.

3- What a Charmer

She’d been after Derek, was the funny part. He’d thought he’d successfully shaken her off after the night in Allensberg, picked her to flirt with and wink at in the crowd (as much because her pendant had caught his eye, as because of her own looks), and then given her the slip after wards, when he retreated to another Inn, and the room adjacent to Stiles’.

And they should have been gone at dawn, as was their custom (even when Derek had been up to all hours earning that coin, damnit, but then, often Stiles would make some excuse and let Derek ride, so it was all right), but the first apothecary Stiles had visited when they got into town hadn’t had the herb he needed for his ~Mysterious Witcher Potions~, so they had a stop to make on the other side of the little town, and even Stiles could sometimes be impressed upon to have patience for the hours that other respectable people kept, and so was waiting until the woman opened her little shop.

And so as it happened, they were standing outside the stable like sitting ducks when the much more angry and less personable woman rounded the corner, eyes and pendant flashing, teeth gnashing, practically spitting in fury.

“I waited for you! Half the night, and into the morning, and here I find you, well rested, with him.” 

Derek was more than a bit thrown, both at why this woman thought he was going to meet her when he certainly didn’t remember saying any such thing, for all his winks and smiles and suggestive lyrics… but also because, in the daylight, he thought he maybe recognized her. She looked familiar… he thought maybe he’d seen her in an inn. Not the inn he’d performed at just here in Allensberg, but somewhere else. Wait, maybe several other places… and that pendant winked in the sun.

“If I can’t have you, then I want to know why!” she shouted, and Derek opened his mouth to let her down gently, even though he was still trying to put things together, figure out what it was she expected to get out of this, and why she been at at least… huh, four? Of his performances in the last month, always with that shiny-shiny pendant-

“The truth!” she screamed, and thrust her hand out at him, and he recognized that she was casting something, had her hands in some sign, and he started to dodge, to drop, to get out of the way, but he was too slow, he hadn’t seen in time-

And Stiles was there. His broad shoulders hardly flinched as he took the force of her spell, and continued forward, bearing down on her. Her eyes got wide and she spun, bolted, took off in the direction of the square. Stiles barely spared Derek a glance before pursuing, but Derek finally had his wits back.

“What’d she- Stiles! Are you hurt? What-”

And Stiles stumbled. He put out his hand for balance, and Derek was there in a moment, offering support, now frankly a bit terrified. Stiles opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.

“F- Fi- I’m Fiiiii- Shit! Goddamn. I don’t know.” Stiles looked a little wide in the eye as Derek caught his gaze. “I don’t know.”

“What was that spell? Did it hurt? What’s wrong?”

Stiles scrunched up his face and gritted his teeth, as though he was fighting the words, but finally relented and met Derek’s eyes again.

“I don’t know. It didn’t hurt, but I’m not sure what it was except-” and Stiles snapped his mouth close again.

“Except what Stiles? What aren’t you telling me?”

Stiles shoved him off, turned his back to Derek, and growled out.

“Except I can’t lie!”


	2. and what happened next

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, this makes the story complete for now, and if you've been reading it here, you might have missed that there are little atmospheric images attached to each chapter. If you'd like to see them all [there's a link here](https://do-what-the-knight-tells-you.tumblr.com/post/190846061584/blood-is-rare-and-sweet-like-cherry-wine) to the tumblr masterpost. thanks for reading!

4- Toss a Sugar Cube to your Witcher

They had eventually tracked the witch down, and she was barely even that, not a lot more magic than a captivating piece of jewelry, and a habit of manipulating folks in to her bedchambers and then robbing or blackmailing them afterwards. 

She hadn’t even known how to reverse her own goddamn truth spell, so it had been a miserable week and a half of travel with her bound and usually gagged to be safe, and Stiles trying to say nothing, and Derek saying hardly anything at all, clearly trying to respect Stiles’ privacy. 

Somehow Stiles hadn’t expected that level of effort from Derek, and was touched. The spell was mostly obnoxious and not actually dangerous, excepting that Stiles was, of course, a man who’d encountered many secrets in his time. There were a lot of folks who could be made much worse off, were Stiles to be stuck like this… but as for himself, there wasn’t much personally He wouldn’t want known. Mostly that little-not-so-little kernal of afffection and attraction he’d been alternately nursing and suppressing for his erstwhile travel companion. 

So it was the most miserable trip they taken so far, in a lot of ways (not that they couldn’t happily sat in the dark and quiet and watched the stars together, but someone always had to be on guard around their obnoxious captive).

But they made it to a moderate-sized temple of Melitele, and the cluster of sorceresses within, who were both capable of handling the little magpie, and also capable of freeing Stiles from his involuntary honesty.

Stiles felt bad about all the time he’d inadvertently taken from Derek’s research and performances, but it was tempered with the knowledge that 1. Derek could have left at any time, and 2. It was, after all, Derek’s flirting that had gotten them into the mess, more or less.

Though Derek, Stiles thought, seemed to be more than good enough at self-flagellating, when he truly felt the wrong was his own.

And sure enough, through the next stretch of town and country, Stiles found him to be penitent and contrite in speech, and brief and professional in performance. Derek insisted on paying every time they stayed in town, even after Stiles took back-to-back successful Drowner contracts, to the point where Stiles considered maneuvering them away from civilization for a while, at least until they could sort out Derek’s guilt. But then, that would prevent Derek working as well, which was of course one of the things Stiles felt bad about… 

Finally, the Witcher had had enough, was tired enough from sorting through and dancing around all the complicated feelings, could see Derek was absolutely exhausted, and was frankly beginning to worry it made them less safe while traveling. 

That night, when Derek finished his set, to no little applause, even despite the quite maudlin nature of his final number, Stiles ambushed him when he made it up the stairs.

“Okay, strip.” Derek started to protest, but Stiles was already shoving at him, threatening to tear the little buttons of his shiny blue and orange doublet off, and so Derek began to strip in self defense. 

Stiles had paid for the rooms this time, and for someone to run an objectively glorious bath, complete with some mild spicy stimulating oil or soap. Stiles had also procured a veritable feast, for the two of them, meat and cheese, and actually nicely roasted vegetables of some nature, not the raw things they’d been consuming on the road to ward off nutritional deficiencies. There was fresh fruit, and candied nuts, and dark sweet pastry with fluffy cream, and mulled wine.

Stiles practically shoved Derek, blushing at his own nudity, into the bath, and Derek wanted to protest but. God. God it was nice.

They chatted about almost nothing, while Derek soaked, and they ate well, Stiles excusing himself partway through to shed his leathers and slip into comparatively cleaner and more comfortable under layers appropriate for relaxation and sleep (not that Derek had any doubts as to Stiles’ ability to spring up and defend them at a moment’s notice, even if he were stark naked, which Derek was Absolutely Not going to think about with naught but a few stray bubbles for cover, should the witcher look…).

(Not that he would be looking…)

Ugh. Derek was careening wildly down a dangerous path, he knew.

He wanted to think that Stiles was cold and distant, emotionless as Witchers were supposed to be, but even from the start, the other man’s sharp humor, and sharper grin had been anything but flat, and all the time since had only reinforced to Derek that any bard who’d even had occasion to sing about a witcher must have been blind as well as stupid, to assume that the rough and cold armor covered nothing human.

Or maybe Stiles was just special.

Any way, the feel of Stiles’ hand on his face, the taste of honey and brown sugar, the depth of those eyes, golden like sunlight caught in tree sap…. Even Stiles’ quick retreat when he apparently noticed how close he’d gotten, wouldn’t dim those memories in a hurry. That sensation.

Derek felt safe, secure, and forgiven, for the first time in a long time, and let himself ease, a little.

  


5- All Lovers are Poets, No?

Derek had tried to come back to baseline with Stiles after Bath Night, but apparently that little frisson of reciprocation was all it took for Derek to crash headlong into the feelings he’d been avoiding. Their rapport had gotten so easy, Derek had to catch himself several times, before he might have crossed an unspoken line, said too much, and blown the whole thing. 

Just looking at his journal filled him with enough emotion to try to fill the whole thing with nothing but poetry and drivel, rhyming, nonsense, searching for the best analogies, descriptions, ways to immortalize the exact up-turn of the Witcher’s nose, and angle of his smile, likening the little dots that covered him to stars, and scars to clouds, and other such nonsense. 

There were hunts still, and Derek found himself both more terrified to loose Stiles every time, and also more sure that nothing could possibly separate them, in this life.

Some of the verses were beginning to shape up into something, and he began to intersperse his tales of valiant derring-do, with frankly embarrassingly honest romantic pieces. He wondered if these pieces were going to make the rounds, be picked up by other bards, as his first ear-worm about a bard and a Witcher, carefully arranged to be catchy but false, to stir up support and buff out dents in reputation, while not exposing the little cluster of elves to further scrutiny… as that piece had. If his new stuff made it home, would Laura be able to tell? Would his mother? Would they know what he had found? What the back of his mind whispered that Stiles was to him?

And then came a night where Stiles didn’t go inquiring after contracts. Where he stayed. And listened. And Derek had to play for him.

And Stiles was... Breathless. 

Stiles hadn’t expected this. He’d noticed the tempo of some of Derek’s recent pieces was very different from all the hero stuff, but he hadn’t thought, hadn’t let himself think, about why that might be. 

But this night, he’d lucked into a promising sounding hunt early, and decided to treat himself, to have a drink and sit, and enjoy the polished versions of some of the things he usually only heard in rough pieces and starts.

And it was gorgeous. Stiles almost couldn’t bring himself to be jealous over whatever lost-love or courtesan Derek was clearly using for inspiration, he was so captivated. 

“Oh but she burns, like rum on a fire, hot and fast…”

Partway through one piece, Derek spotted him, caught his eyes, faltered. Stiles smiled encouragingly, and Derek resumed, never looking away from Stiles. 

“Her fight and fury’s firey  
Oh  
But she loves  
Like sleep to the freezing.  
Sweet and right and merciful  
I’m all but washed  
In the tide of her breathing

And it’s worth it  
It’s divine  
I have this  
Some of the time”

When the piece ends, and the applause dies (because he’s captivating enough tonight that there is applause, people are watching him, as if they’d come to this particular establishment for no reason other than to listen to Derek play.

Derek finally looks away, and Stiles can breathe again, takes a deep pull from his tankard, tries to decide if he’s strong enough to sit here through any other songs like that. 

Thank Melitele the next piece is a light Witcher Ballad, but right after, he almost seamlessly transitions into another slow smooth sweet piece, playing with the silence as much as the sound. 

“I’m so full of love I could barely eat.  
Nothing’s sweeter than my lady,   
I’d never want once from the Cherry Tree  
My Lady’s sweet as can be,  
Gives me toothaches from but kissing me…”

And as Derek drops into a heavier, more driving chorus, Stiles can almost smell brown sugar and honey on the air. The song is beautiful one, sweetness balanced with the darker, sadder themes, and then washed in love and joy again, as Derek and his lover are rejoined, redeem each other, wash each other clean. 

Stiles is transfixed, jealous, overjoyed, heartsick with envy, bowled over with so much emotion. The idea of love that feels that way, of a lover with whom you can be that open and honest, is so foreign, and Stiles has been fine, all the decades, with little more than occasional paid company, and occasional comradeship, and he’s always been firm with himself, insisted that he didn’t want that anyway, that the life of a Witcher was inconstant, so he could never promise an adult, that is was dangerous, so it was just as well he couldn’t father a child… and never did he let himself consider his parents, and what they went through to get him, and how much it cost, and the ways in which John still hasn’t, and probably never will recover.

Stiles doesn’t know if he will ever be prepared for or open to a love like that, but he thinks it might be too late to avoid one.

Damn bard.

6- Sexual Predilections

Stiles is falling into lust so fast and hard he feels like drowning, he can taste it on his tongue and feel it on his skin, and he hates that he’s so deep he can’t tell if Derek reciprocates. Sometimes he thinks the bard might, but then the the walls come up and Derek closes off, and Stiles retreats in confusion and thwarted desire. He’s started taking separate rooms for them again, when available, and staying out late or coming in early to avoid catching Derek in the bath. 

But it’s too late, he’s seen the tattoo on Derek’s back, watched the water drip down it, knows exactly where it sits. When Stiles reaches for his shoulder to gently correct his trajectory as he walks and strums, he knows even through three layers of cloth and embroidery how close his thumb is to the edge of that mark. 

It’s solidly summer, no excuse to bunk in close together, and Stiles doesn’t know if that’s a blessing or curse, misses being so close to Derek on the road, misses, Melitele, even the smell of him in the morning, sleep-soft and warm, mouth foul from the night, but smiling so sweet, front teeth peeking out over his lip, under the hair. 

Stiles came back from a hunt the other night, still running high on magic and adrenalin, covered in viscera and wishing for a stream. Even in summer, jumping in a stream is a decent cure for the arousal coursing through him at the end of a fight. But there are no streams in a reasonable distance, just a well on the farm that issued the contract, where Derek and Roscoe are sleeping tonight. Stiles almost can’t make it back there, so hard up is he, but he manages, starts stripping right there in the open by the well, one hand on the rope, the other on his cock, and he’s coming in seconds, sure he can smell Derek on the breeze, even though he can’t possibly smell anything but dead monster, before he’s even gotten the bucket up the first time.

If he’d have turned, he’d have known that it was, in fact, Derek he could smell.

Derek had been unaccountably nervous about this one, and had been watching through the window of the hayloft, where they were meant to sleep, waiting to catch the glint of moonlight on swords as Stiles returned. When he’d seen the Witcher, he’d quietly dropped down onto the floor of the barn, and crept towards the back door, where the well was, fully intending to check on Stiles while he washed, be sure there were no injuries. Something about the way Stiles had been almost limping made him worry.

But when Derek poked his head out, Stiles was already half-dressed and he could see- oh. Stiles was aroused. Like really really aroused. No wonder the limping, Derek thought, in a distant way, as he watched Stiles grind, hard into his own fist, and begin to stripe himself rapidly, leaning on the well, other hand fisted in the rope for support. Derek felt his blood drain south, his own pants tightening, the sick sweep of shame knowing that this was a violation of trust… but he couldn’t look away.

He’d heard Stiles, of a night, on the road, and smelled him too, but the Witcher was usually one to conduct such affairs quietly and without show, and had politely ignored any time he must have heard or smelled Derek doing the same.

But now, the moonlight fairly shone on his pale skin, and pale scars, caught wetly in all the moisture on his hand… and on the pearls that scattered into the dirt as he tipped over with a groan, pantin forg, hung sated a moment, and the resumed cleaning up.

Derek slipped back to bed as quietly as he knew how, resolutely ignored his erection, and could almost pretend to himself that he was asleep when Stiles joined him.

Oh god. This was untenable.

7- Destroy with a Sweet Kiss

The fight goes sideways. 

Derek was not supposed to be there, was supposed to be safely away, but the kikimore they’d been tracking had clearly turned and decided to track them, and it had caught them. Derek got out of the way fast, hauling on Roscoe’s reins to keep her clear of the fight while Stiles engaged, and slapped her into a short run once he thought they were unlikely to attract the attention of the embattled pair.

Stiles was holding his own, but twilight was falling, and the monster clearly had better vision (and more limbs). Derek knew Stiles had a potion he normally took to improve his vision during the hunt, but he hadn’t had a chance and, though Derek had seen a hand go for that pouch several times, it looked like he might not get one. Not seeing a better option, and not able to stand there and watch the person he loved be dragged into death, one small gash at a time, Derek got a stupid idea. 

He picked his way around to the opposite side of the fight from where Roscoe had run off, collecting moderate sized stones on his way. Once on the other side, and with his eyes on his escape route, a clear path and large tree, much taller than the kikimore, Derek began to lob his projectiles at the monster.

By the third rock, it worked, Derek saw it lose focus and begin looking for him, saw Stiles get a hand into his pocket in the gathering dark… and realized he needed to make a run for it.

He tried.

Even as fast as he could be when he really made the effort, Derek was not fast enough, and not experienced enough still, clearly, to know better.

The creature caught him in midair, just as he was leaping for the lowest branches of his chosen tree. Derek had one profound moment to recognize the impact and change of trajectory, to wonder why there was force but no pain, before he hit another tree, and knew no more.

The next thing Derek was aware of was wetness on his face, and pain in his ribs, back, his whole torso. He tried to draw breath and it caught and he coughed, white-hot agony coursed through him.

He opened his eyes. Stiles was staring at him.

“You- you’re alive? How…”

Derek forced himself to look, to acknowledge the fucking tree branch protruding from his miserably destroyed doublet, grimaced and tried to get his breathing under control enough to say something, anything.

“Get. It out.”

Stiles looked so sad.

“Derek. It’s, you’ll bleed to death. If I pull it… you’re going to… there’s no way…”

Derek shook his head, coughing and spitting blood once more.

“Won’t” he managed to grind out.

Stiles just shook his head mutely.

Derek reached out with one hand, limply grasped a shoulder piece on the Witcher’s armor.

“Please.”

Stiles looked so resigned, so regretful. He closed his eyes for a moment, as if drawing strength. Opened them with determination.

“Are you sure? I mean there’s no… you’re not going to survive this either way, but… there’s maybe time…”

Derek shook his head, grabbed Stiles weakly with both hands, and tried to pull himself off the spike of wood.

Stiles made a noise almost like a sob, partially drowned out by Derek’s deep grunt of pain, slid his hand up Derek’s back, braced the other on the tree, and pulled.

With a sickening sucking sensation and sound, Derek came free, nearly passing out again in the immediate blood loss Stiles had known was coming, but Stiles, despite clearly believing it was futile, clearly believing he was witnessing his friend’s last moments, still did his best to apply pressure to the hole in Derek’s chest cavity. Derek clung to consciousness by his finger tips, focused on breathing. 

Several minutes passed, and though the Witcher was still stooped with agony and grief, Derek cradled in his lap… Stiles’ look of desolation began to be edged out by confusion, and then, with the realization that the blood pool had stopped expanding, and Derek still wasn’t dead yet… maybe even a little hope?

After twenty minutes, twenty minutes of lying in Stiles’ lap, trying to figure a way out of the coming conversation and failing, Derek finally decided he was patched enough to talk without tearing something open. 

“Are you okay?”

Stiles gaped.

“Am I? Am I okay? You ass. You utter… how are you alive??”

Derek offered a little smile.

“Destiny?”

“Shut the fuck up. You are so full of shit, you… seriously. How. What… what are you?”

And it was Derek’s turn to look away. All this time, and he still didn’t know how to say it, but it looked like his time was up.

“You, do you,” he paused, cleared his throat, and sucked it up. “When we first met, do you remember. The song?”

The witcher paused. 

“Bisclarvet. The lai of bisclarvet.”

Derek nodded, waiting for it to sink in, knowing he was probably healed enough to sit up, being completely unwilling to. 

“You’re…” Derek could practically see the wheels turning. “You’re a werewolf.”

Derek forced himself to nod in a way that did not betray how badly he wished he could run. He turned his head at least, not wanting to see the moment his friend’s surprise turned to anger at the lies, hatred of what Derek was. Had always been.

He was surprised a moment later, when Stiles touched his face, gently, turned him back so there was no hiding.

“You can’t… I don’t know how you hid that from me all this time. I can usually…”

Derek smiled, a tiny bitter thing.

“I’m not just fastidious by nature.” It was mild, but the herbs he added to his personal oils and soaps had natural scent-suppressive properties. A decent enough feature in products meant to keep one smelling fresher and cleaner than one was, and as long as he didn’t do anything to enhanced that part of his scent, transform, or anything… “And I’ve a charm.”

Stiles frowned, touching his witcher pendant, “I would know…” his eyes went distant. “It’s on Filivandrel’s Lute, isn’t it?”

Derek nodded. He had figured, correctly it appeared, that the elf lord’s instrument was magical enough that Derek’s little notice-me-not charm would, indeed, be overlooked in the general swell of enchantment.

Stiles looked back at him, and Derek could quite clearly see the hurt in those normally guarded golden eyes. There was a song in that somewhere…

“Why… did you never… do you have that low opinion of me, that you would think I’d, I’d find out and could ever…”

Not really, but Derek couldn’t, it was a risk he could never… He sighed. Stiles had earned the whole story, many times over, and if he chose to depart Derek’s company after, then that was more than understandable.

Derek took a deep breath, and was distracted coughing again. Stiles, now fairly confident Derek was not about to die, propped Derek up against the faithful tree, whistled Roscoe back, and was offering Derek a water skin by the time he could breath again.

Fairly sure all his internal organs were intact, Derek drank greedily, realizing suddenly how desperate he was to replace all the fluid he’d lost.

Stiles sat in a sad silence until he’d drained the water completely, and then held out a compressed cake of nuts, fruit and honey, which Derek gratefully accepted.

Finally, Derek could put it off no longer.

He told him. He told him about falling out of trees as a child, about long golden afternoons on his family’s estate, rolling and frolicking, and being so happy and alive in their skins, he and all his siblings, safe in the knowledge that nothing could ever harm them, that no one would ever cross their mother.

He told him about the growing political tensions as he grew, and the thread of instability that crept into the pack when his uncle left, the fights he was not supposed to hear… and the woman in town to whom he went when it all became too much.

Derek forced himself to tell Stiles of his great mistake, how foolish he’d been, and what a price had been paid, by everyone but him, half the pack dead, their secrets aired to the world, their target hung neatly in the hunter halls for any newcomer to try to make his mark.

How, when he was old enough, he did what his remaining family could not bring themselves to ask him to do.

He left.

He’d always been drawn to music, had a good ear for it, liked the way performance and composition could let him forget sometimes, take him out of himself… he joined a bardic college, and didn’t go home.

He told stiles about his plan, his sorry little dream, his hope that, between the coin he sent home, and the sympathetic and nuanced portrayal of folk like himself he tried to spread, he could begin to pay back the damage he’d done, in his youth and arrogance.

His surprise to meet stiles, but the instant knowledge that this was it, this was how he made that difference, this was how he learned what could nt be found in books of men, and how he reached the far reaches of the known country.

Derek faltered a little, Stiles’ face betrayed nothing once again, and Derek decided enough damage he likely already been done. He took a swig from the new skin Stiles had passed him partway through the tale, and went for broke.

“And, I know that sounds like I only valued you for what you could do for me professionally, and it may have started out that way, but it hasn’t been like that for a long time. For a long time now, I’ve… And I know I’ve no right to ask for, for forgiveness or understanding, but I want you to know, that you are… you are everything. You have so much integrity, you’re kind and generous, and funny and brave, and, and beautiful, lords, and if I could ask one boon of the universe, it would be to be always by your side, in whatever capacity you would have me. I lo-”

And Stiles lunged forward, and kissed him.

It was not a gentle kiss, but Stiles was still clearly using every bit of his Witcher strength not to press upon any of Derek’s so recently knitted flesh, and Derek, as his brain finally caught up with his mouth (okay, he had a limited supply of blood to work with at the moment), decided his did not give a shit about guilt, or pain, or whatever, and he was going to take what was on offer, apparently. Goddamnit. He mustered his strength, and shoved back at Stiles, taking one moment to appreciate the look of surprise on the Witcher’s face as he fell on his ass, before following him down, claiming his mouth again, and laying them both out on the rocky ground.

—

Eventually the pain, and thirst was enough that they had to come up for air. Also Derek found he could only ignore the putrid mess of kikimore stuck to Stiles’ outfit for so long. Also, did he mention, really needed to be having a greater blood volume than he had if he wanted to be taking things much further. It took little persuasion, though a deal more coordination than Derek was prepared for, to get them both stripped and in a river (thank all gods it wasn’t winter).

Derek himself had drunk about half his weight (and made stiles go back for the rest of the honey cakes and jerky), by the time he deemed them both clean enough to not foul their fresh(ish) clothes and bedding, and began to make his way out of the water, when Stiles pulled him back. Derek would have been all for some swimming hanky-panky in other circumstances (his self-imposed celibacy/punishment on the circuit had not, in fact, diminished his libido, or increased his modesty a bit), but he really was still a little too light-headed to be sure of his ability to stay upright on the slick rocks for anything more than they’d already been up to… but the look on stiles face wasn’t lustful. There was a hunger there, Derek thought, but… oh.

Stiles was gently tracing the fresh pink skin on Derek’s torso.

“I had wondered,” the witcher began, swallowed, began again, “I had noticed that you had no scars to speak of. Your being genteel was not a surprise, though I had also wondered why, for as much as you play, your hands were still soft.” There was wonder in Stiles’ voice, as he traced the shape of Derek’s light musculature, traced the slight protrusion of collar bones, up his neck, finally across his face. Derek closed his eyes instinctively, as Stiles’ rough fingertips, only slightly softened in the water, glided across cheekbones and eyelids, thumbs joining a moment later to smooth the length of Derek’s brows. There was a long pause, and Derek let his eyes flutter open again, surprised, as ever, by the way the witcher practically glowed in moonlight.

“Show me?” Stiles whispered, and Derek knew what he meant. And for the first time in decades, it was easy, first to let the blue bleed into his eyes, and then to let the rest of the beta shift flow over him.

Stiles gasped a little, but didn’t pull away. His hands resumed the soft caress, and Derek had never felt so whole, complete, and seen, in his entire life.

\--

_fin_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who knows, we could come back to this, I feel there’s still a lack of witcher/werewolf sex, which can’t help but be good (mutual scent kiink anyone? Also neither having to hold back, because they are well matched in physical strength/durability. But also also probs some real tender lovin’ at some point, probs at least once when stiles truly processes the idea that he might have found a partner whose lifespan could match his own holy shit he might not have to bury Derek). But also, I felt like derek needed some sleep first, and didn’t want to start a new section. So that’s it for now!
> 
> Bits that didn’t make it in:
> 
> Stiles being grumpy over the idea of spoiled, genteel werewolves. Derek coming to their defense, explaining that Laura and Cora, his two surviving siblings, were actually much more, uh, physically inclined than he was, Laura training to be the next alpha, presumably, and Cora, a knight, in service to a bit of a warrior queen (lydia, absolutely).
> 
> Stiles insisting that derek needed:
> 
> 1\. Fighting clothes
> 
> 2\. To learn how to fight properly. Like, stiles was not intended to subject him to the worst of the hunts, but the showing derek had put up with the kikimore was pitiful, and even a werewolf probs couldn’t survive being beheaded or eaten, so. Self-defense at least.
> 
> Eventually, Stiles helps Derek decide to go home again. Cue teary reunions, forgiveness, and maybe Derek getting called out on having found his mate and not telling anyone. Including, oops, well, now the witcher knows. XD


End file.
